Maia is a colony building game set in the not-so-distant future. Your colonists make planetfall on a hostile world and you must ensure their survival and their safety, constructing their off-world habitat from almost nothing and sheltering them from a dangerous, often deadly environment.

User reviews:

Overall:

Mixed
(587 reviews)
- 45% of the 587 user reviews for this game are positive.

Early Access Game

Get instant access and start playing; get involved with this game as it develops.

Note: This Early Access game is not complete and may or may not change further. If you are not excited to play this game in its current state, then you
should wait to see if the game progresses further in development. Learn more

What the developers have to say:

Why Early Access?

“Hi! Thanks for checking out our early access release of Maia. Alpha access gives us the unique opportunity to work with the community and craft the game together. Maia is a game with unprecedented complexity, and developing features directly with our players allows us to refine these intricate game systems to create a world that really feels alive.”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

“We want to keep development hurtling forwards at a steady rate and plan to release update builds once a month as the game progresses. (You'll often see smaller updates go out sooner as we push out important fixes as soon as we have tested them.)

We just released 0.55! After that we will be releasing the campaign, extra single player maps and full modding tools over the coming months, whilst refining the game and adding greater depth to the content.”

How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version?

“We plan for the full version of the game will have a complete single player campaign as well as the current sandbox mode. The campaign will last between 10-18 hours, depending on the player, but we expect the sandbox mode and additional single player maps (and of course mods) to give the player potentially endless replayability.”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“The game is still very deep in development, so many things might be broken. Sometimes in a rather amusing manner, sometimes... less so. The current sandbox build (0.57) has the core game play of colony building, colonist interaction and base simulation, the best is still to come.”

Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access?

“We have priced the game at a reasonable price to avoid people impulse buying the game in it's early state. Once the campaign is in, and the community feels that we have hit the right level of quality, we will be raising the price to reflect it.”

How are you planning on involving the Community in your development process?

“We try to read every forum post and email sent to us and work hard to consider and incorporate peoples feedback into the game.

You can follow updates and give us feedback on the game via Twitter on @Maia and on forums.maiagame.com.

On https://dev.maiagame.com you can view changes going into the game in real time as we develop it.

IRC users can join us on #maiagame on Quakenet. If you want to talk directly to me, the developer, I am @Simoroth on Twitter!”

Buy Maia

August 15

Maia 0.63 is ready. This update brings a lot of new features as well as an overhaul of the game's simulation and balance. I want to say thank you to everyone who gave feedback over the summer, it's helped me improve the game significantly. Here's a video of me playing the latest build and showing off some of the new features:

If treated poorly enough, colonists can now leave the base and head off to their inevitable deaths in the barren wastelands of Maia. Fulfilling food, rest, social needs and building an aesthetically pleasing base will all be important to keeping them loyal. That said, some colonists are just cowards, so don't feel too bad about them.

High Energy

The games bodily simulation of the colonists has been made more accurate with heat loss through convection, conduction and radiation in different mediums. Colonist metabolisms are finer tuned with effects from sweat, to kinetic energy losses affecting them as they go about their days. Keep your colony warm and sources of water abundant to keep them happy, efficient, and breathing.

Maian Time Slip

The day length of Maia has been made longer. This will give your colonists more time to carry out essential.. and less essential tasks, and take the pressure off growing colonies. Conversely with the slower simulation of the climate and weather, and longer nights, solar and wind generation will now be more challenging to keep online, requiring a greater focus on efficient storage and energy management.

Notable Changes since 0.62:

IMPs no longer get stuck sparking.

IMPs will now place minerals in the smelter. They cannot start it themselves however so you will have to manually - or wait for a colonist.

Player now receives an email when they lose all their IMP robots.

Flywheels can be clicked on to be put into charge only mode. Allowing you to store energy for emergencies.

PAUSE BUTTON added to the UI. Pausing no longer causes glitching, is compatible with the building UI. (Don't get too used to the bottom left placement, it's going in the top right soon)

UI changes to hide text and mouse attached objects when hovering over buttons.

Mouse now sits properly infront of UI items.

Condenser now has visible running water when clicked on or used.

Minerals make dust clouds when dropped or clicked on.

Workshop table, bodybags, foot packets, grass and other items now have click reactions.

Alien plant samples have a nice mist effect.

Numerous tweaks to AI and balancing.

Large amounts of food creation balancing.

Food preparation bugs fixed.

All food KJ calculated more accurately based on the correct breeds and in many cases have increased substantially (potatoes and chickens are over double what they were).

Ration packs are now far more likely to be built.

Ration packs can be opened by colonists and the player.

Colonist standard and binge meal sizes increased.

Condensers now advertise the high level "water purification" need (like the solar stills) so are better prioritised when building.

Many small optimisations and a huge amount of code cleanup. Potentially fixing a lot of bugs and likely preventing future ones.

Missing rain fixed.

Food trays appearing "unbuilt" issue fixed.

Colonists now simulate heat radiation and conduction due to convection on their skin.

Colonists put less direct heat into a room (as roughly 20% is put into kinectic/mechanical energy)

Fix for missing molerat animation causing a crash.

Smelting priority tweaks.

Stockpiling bugs fixed.

Creation of hydroponics planters priority increased.

Bug fixed on determining food creation priority need.

Colonists with suitable skills (construction) will be able to produce twice as much building materials from the smelter.

Colonists are less likely to hoard materials.

Colonists can now binge on food if they need to make up more than one meal. This means they can eat 10000kj of energy rather than the usual 6000kj.

More of the alien creatures can now breed and produce a flock of tiny cute murder machines. This will change how they protect their territories, react to colonists, and also feed back into the simulation of the ecosystem in new and emergent ways.

Baby creatures, and animals of all sorts, will now imprint on the first thing they see and follow and copy their new parent. So be sure to keep your livestock room doors locked unless you want your dogs to become unsuspecting parents to your hatchling chickens.

Fear

Colonists will now sometimes break down and run away from something if it terrifies them, such as an alien sneaking into the base or an out of control fire breaking out. They will go cower and cry and feel guilty about how much of a burden they are to the colony.

When trapped in rooms colonists will start getting very upset and start banging on doors to try and escape. Leaving them in the room will deeply upset them, potentially damaging their sanity causing them to harm equipment or themselves!

Fine Dining

Colonists can now sit down at the dining table for relaxing communal meals in the living area, allowing them to rest, eat and socialise simultaneously.

They can can also now deposit raw food supplies in the storage room if there is a surplus of production. These can be picked up later to build ration packs or to fill a food preparation station.

Deep Learning

Colonists can now learn skills by practising them, once a new skill is leant it will allow the colonist to perform the action better, faster or more often. They can also sit at desks to learn new expertise in theory, saving themselves the effort and bringing more exotic skill sets to your colony.

Maia is now undergoing very regular changes. Sometimes several a day. Get on the development branch if you'd like to be part of this transition from Alpha to Beta. The 1.0 release for Maia is now set for August so I need all the help I can get with testing.

That's all for now. If you like these updates be sure to drop us feedback via Twitter and Steam reviews.

About This Game

About This Game

Maia is a strange and hostile alien world, toxic to humans, yet lush with new life. Your mission is to colonise this poison eden, survive it's dangers and establish humanity's first foothold in the stars. Created by independent developer Simon Roth, Maia is a space colony simulation game about surviving and thriving on another world.

Build your Base

Burrow into Maia's mineral rich crust to build and manage a complex base that fulfills your colonist's needs. They'll need somewhere to sleep, somewhere to build and a steady supply of food, water and energy.

An Enormous Procedurally-Generated World

Twelve light years from earth, the planet 3452C[Maia] circles Tau Ceti. Its atmosphere is toxic, its surface is ravaged by solar flares and meteor blasts and its unstable crust is constantly shifted by earthquakes. Nevertheless, it is theoretically habitable. Explore Maia through a series of vast procedurally generated mission areas, each one up to 2km by 2km in size.

Challenge Yourself

In addition to the sandbox mode players can take on four specific missions, with more to come in updates. Deal with an influx of refugees from a stricken space station in Cassiopeia, survive the perpetual night of arctic winter in The Twilight Zone, study Maia's local ecosystem in SN1572 and begin to terraform the planet in the shadow of an active volcano in Stratospheric Sulphates.

Research and Learn from the Planet to Survive

Maia is a hard science fiction game based on real or extrapolated technology. Some of the colonist's tools have been brought with them, but others must be fabricated from what they can find. Once your base is up and running colonists can begin to study the native environment researching new ways to use the flora and fauna of Maia to their advantage.

Dangerous Atmosphere

Maia's atmosphere is toxic to humans, so to keep safe you'll need carefully manage the atmosphere around your base with well placed airlocks, atmosphere generators, heaters and air vents. Air flow and heat circulation are realistically simulated, emulating the deadly challenge of surviving on an alien world.

Advanced Colonists AI

In Maia you don't have direct control of your colonists, they operate on their own initiative, fulfilling their wants and needs. You'll need to take care of both their bodies and minds if you want any of them to survive.

An Army of Robots

Colonising an alien world isn't something humanity can do alone, instead they've created robotic helpers to do the jobs they don't want to. The I.M.P. robot digs through Maia's crust and collects useful minerals, while the Utility Repair Robot takes care of all that routine maintenance humans can't be bothered with.

First Person Mode

Experience Maia through the eyes of your pet robots. Assume direct control and explore your base in first person, directly interacting with it by performing your robotic tasks. Become part of the world you've built.

Genetically Engineered Super Chickens

To survive, your colonists will need to create and manage new sources of food, thus the people of Earth designed the genetically engineered super chicken, the Uberhuhn. With enough time and diligent research you can even begin to collect and herd the native wildlife of Maia. Unfortunately most of it tastes terrible.

Custom Engine

Maia runs on a custom game engine made by independant developer Simon Roth. It is used exclusively in Maia and is purpose built specifically to support this game.

Immersive Soundtrack

Maia's immersive sci-fi soundtrack adapts and responds to in game events, ensuring it always reflects the mood of the game.

The Inspiration

Maia was inspired by games such as Dungeon Keeper, Theme Hospital and The Sims. It mixes strategy, management and construction with dark gallows humour about the many dangers of an alien world. Maia also draws from the retro future style of 1970s sci-fi.

To Come

A full story driven campaign, several hours long.

More rooms, and new base management systems.

Multiple bases.

More indigenous life forms and a functioning food chain.

Somewhat sassy computers.

Realistic water and lava simulation.

Cats with bee suits.

Get Involved

One of the great things about early access is being able to have players follow along with the game’s creation. This immediate feedback is extremely valuable to the games development. You can see our updates and give us feedback on the game via Twitter or our Development Blog. If you need some help with getting started in the game, you can check out our guides, head over to the official wiki or sign up to the forum.